Shooting incidents
Sometimes, people find themselves in an active shootout event being carried out by an individual or a group of people within a confined place. This is a devastating period that can lead to either injuries or loss of lives in the process. The events occur unexpectedly in a random manner, and people are caught unaware, thus becoming victims. Different precautionary measures have been put for people to follow when such incidents occur so that they can escape or survive the ordeal. An active shooter is a person who is engaged in an active shooting where people are killed or maimed in a place that has a large population and does not have escape routes. The shooter does not select the people to execute and thus kills anyone who is on his way.
During and after a shooting incident, the victims are left in an ethical dilemma. Many of them do not know what to do at any given time when the event is occurring, thus putting them in danger of being hurt or killed. After the incident, others are not aware of what to do to get help due to the trauma of the incident. To avoid ethical dilemmas during and after a shooting event in a building, a solution plan needs to be developed to help these people even before such an occurrence happens. This paper will develop an action plan that can be used to provide solutions to the ethical situations that people find themselves in during and after an active shooter event.
This paper will analyze several aspects that need to be put into considerations to ensure that people are safe when a shooting occurs where they are. The solutions will be divided into two sections. The first section will focus on providing solutions when the shootout is in progress, and the second will be for the period after the event has been subdued. The application of the set strategies will guarantee positive results hence the need to implement them.
Statistics
Different sources have provided different statistical data on the number of active shooter events in America. This depends on the agencies’ criteria for defining what an active shooter event is. Some of the organizations do not consider gang shootings as active shooter events, especially those that occur in residential areas. Others consider the event if three or more people are killed by shooting, including the orchestrator of the crime. Also, others do not consider the perpetrator of the event in counting those who have been shot and killed. These variances create differences in the provided statistical data from the organizations.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, in 2018, there were twenty-seven active shooter events in America. However, the Mass Shooting Tracker organization recorded a very high number totaling to four hundred and twenty-six events. Another organization, called the Gun Violence Archive, recorded three hundred and forty incidents. The FBI has shown that most of the active shootings occur in businesses where there is a high traffic of people. Other places include schools, churches, open spaces, military bases, healthcare facilities, and private properties.
Stakeholders
To ensure that people are able to evade or escape an active shooter event, different stakeholders are required in the formulation of a strategic plan and its implementation. An active shootout incident can be broken down into different sections that each require a specific stakeholder.
Before the incident
To start with, there is a need to ensure that people are aware of these incidents and how they occur. This can be achieved through the media, which plays a focal role in relaying information. Different platforms such as the internet, social media, radio stations, and televisions are used to make the public aware of past incidences, the impact they made, current prediction of occurrence, and what to do when it happens to them. In this case, the strategy is to incorporate the media into our plan to ensure that it informs the public. People are able to access these platforms; thus, using them to inform them will ensure that people are cautious of their environment.
The government, through its local administrative officers, are also key players in sensitizing the public about the mass shooting in public. The officers are close to the people and are the best to use in ensuring that information reaches everyone. Therefore, this arm of government is a vital player in combating such incidents from happening. Their inclusion in the plan is essential as they can easily identify possible terror attackers in their localities before they terrorize the people. When the public is made aware of the necessary steps to take, they will take precautionary measures, including reporting a suspect to the administration and the police.
The other channel of creating public awareness is the involvement of non-governmental organizations that deal with human welfare. The red cross-organization has a team of experts that are used in giving out information and relevant data to the public so that it can be prepared for such a terror attack. Many of the people who do a mass shooting have stress-related problems. Once they are identified before they elapse and engage in the heinous act, psychologist plays a vital role in helping them recover. Also, psychologists can help people to be mentally sober when the shooting is ongoing so that they can make a sound judgment of what to do so that they are not injured or killed.
During the active shooting
After public awareness is done, there are other stakeholders that are engaged when the active shooting is in progress. These stakeholders need to be included in the plan as their role is crucial in saving lives. Police officers ensure that there is security in the community. They usually receive information from the public, and it is their duty to take necessary action on the suspected person. During an active shooting event, they are actively involved in containing the situation by arresting or shooting down the terrorist. They are also involved in saving the victims during the shootings. Without their involvement in stopping the mass shooting, many people can lose their lives while others get serious injuries from the shooter. Therefore, the plan will be a failure if this group is not included as a major priority stakeholder.
Another major stakeholder that is actively involved during a mass shooting incident is the healthcare providers. Nurses and doctors are very busy during this time as they engage in treating the injured victims who are being rescued from the shooting area. During the incident, people get injuries from different sources; some get them from the shooter through direct confrontation, while others get injures due to stampede as they try to escape from the vicinity. It is the role of healthcare providers to offer their expertise to these injured victims. Therefore, the doctors and nurses will be included in the plan since their role cannot be overlooked as not important.
After the active shooting
After the incident has been subdued, there are many activities done by different stakeholders. Healthcare workers are involved in the provision of care to the injured victims of the incident. Non-governmental organizations such as Red Cross are also involved in rescuing and providing first aid services to the victims. Both the healthcare givers and NGOs help in saving lives. The police are also involved in containing the crime scene and also rescuing the injured victims and taking them to health facilities. They are also responsible for carrying out investigations as to the cause of the shooting, whether it was a terror attack. Due to the trauma-induced on the shooter victims, psychologists are engaged in long-term involvement with them to offer assistance in recovery. All these stakeholders are essential after an active shooter event and should be included in the planning of a solution.
Training
During an active shooting incident, people usually get hurt due to a lack of any formal training concerning an active shooting incident. It is, however, difficult to train each and every person across the country since this terror does not necessarily happen everywhere. From the data available, it is evident that most prone areas are those that have a high number of people within a confined place. It is, therefore, important to first map out these places before introducing a training program. Once mapped, those people who are permanently employed in these places are going to be the first priority in being trained. This is because they are at a higher percentage risk of finding themselves in an active shooter event.
Having the employees trained on this disaster management will ensure that, during the incident, these people will be the first to help the other members of the public are controlled to safe areas. Trained people are able to compose themselves during a terrifying time, and thus, they manage to control the distracted crowd well away from the shooter. This is very helpful since many victims will be saved from the shooter in an orderly manner. When they are trained, they receive adequate first aid handling techniques. The training is of help in incidents where there are people who have been injured as they receive first aid before they get to the hospital.
The people will, therefore, be trained in different aspects of an active shooter event. They will be trained on first aid service, which will be crucial in handling the injured. Also, they will receive pieces of training on what to do when an active shooting is in progress and after the shooting is over. This will include running to escape from the shooter, hiding in safe areas where the shooter can’t see you, and if both are not possible, fight the shooter as a last resort. After the shooting, there are several things to do, which include being visible with empty hands to the police, cooperate with the investigators, assist the injured, and seek for psychological help to avoid being traumatized. The employees will also be tasked with the duty of training other people including their family to ensure that more people are trained
The training will involve experts in this field, employers, and healthcare experts. This is not a long-term engagement training, and therefore, little time will be required for the employees to be trained. With the plan in place, the employees will go through the process and thus be prepared in case an active shooting occurs. This will help to minimize casualties since there will be a help to those who do not know what to do in such a situation. However, the success of the employees being trained will depend highly on the cooperation of the employers with the program. Unless these employers give their employees this chance, it is highly likely that they will miss the opportunity of getting trained.
To ensure that the employees have understood the training and can manage themselves and others in a mass shooting, drills will be conducted after a period of time. A drill is a simulation of a real attack that aims at ensuring that the people are well trained and can be able to handle such a situation. The exercises will be under controlled environments where the trainees will not be aware that it is a test, and it will not disrupt the public causing unnecessary panicking.
Implementation plan
The implementation plan is expected to be successful. However, there are a few assumptions and risks that are to be made in the program. They are essential to consider before the plan implementation is commenced. These assumptions include:
- There will be no financial constraints
- Employers will allocate time for their employees to be trained
- All stakeholders will be fully willing to participate without any fallouts
- There will be no active shooting event during the training period
- All employees will participate in the entire training session.
The above-mentioned assumptions pose some risks to the success of the plan. To conduct the activities, money is required, the shortage of it will result in some activities being forfeited. If the employers are not willing to allow their employees to get the training, then the plan will not take place. Therefore, employers, employees, and other stakeholders must be present and willing to make the program a success.
Every activity that is to be carried out requires to be allocated to specific stakeholders to ensure that they champion it to its completion. It is inappropriate to assign a particular activity to a stakeholder without delegating the matter with them. Therefore, they will be actively engaged in the allocation of training activities so that they can give their consensus over the issue. Doing this will minimize fallouts and disappointments where the stakeholders do not wish to be involved since they were not initially consulted about their involvement.
Different stakeholders have been mentioned above and the roles that they play before, during, and after an active shooting event. Therefore, the plan is to reach out to each one of them and have a consensus on the training program. First, the project will be to formulate a committee that will identify the best place to start the program will take place. This will be the most vulnerable place that an attack could happen or may have happened before. After the identification, we will reach out to the government for the approval of the training program that is going to take place. Without this approval, the training will not be allowed to take place, and therefore, we will have to ensure that it is approved.
Upon approval, it is time now to reach out to other stakeholders who are going to be actively involved in the training program. The media is crucial in relaying information. We will reach out to several major media houses and inform them of the training program, after which they will broadcast ads to create public awareness of the program. When people are informed of the importance of the training, they will be more willing to participate. Since employees are going to be trained, the employers in the selected places will be sought after and asked to offer the chance to their employees to be prepared. They will also undergo the training and be provided with precautionary measures that they need to put in places such as first aid kits and escape routes in their workplaces.
Trainers of the program will mainly be sourced from the police department and the fire brigade team, for they are well versed with self-defense and rescue operations, respectively. The firefighters are generally involved in rescuing people in many instances, and this makes them appropriate in educating people on how they can manage to escape safely using available resources such a rope to get from the top of the building to the ground. If there is no option and the victim has to fight the shooter, the police department will provide training on how to tackle the shooter without having higher risks of being shot. The other players will be the healthcare experts and NGOs who are involved in rescue and health care. These stakeholders will teach the trainees on first aid care for those who are injured before help arrives.
The success of an implementation plan requires a lot of work, aside from developing it and letting it be run. It demands active participation where there is aa set system that ensures all participants are well coordinated. The project is expected to train 1,000 employees and employers within a span of two months. Therefore, milestones are to be set so that we can continuously monitor the success and progress of the training. Each group of trainees will consist of approximately 200 people who will undergo the training for two weeks each. Regular communications with the trainers will ensure that any challenges that arise are handled before it escalates to an extent where it cannot be processed. There will be three milestones to be accomplished where, after each milestone, a meeting will be held among all the players to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the program and the possible solutions.
Different issues are likely to crop up during milestone meetings. These issues need to be addressed before moving to the next milestone so that the problems do not repeat in the upcoming milestone. Some of the milestone issues that may be raised by the stakeholders include the following:
- Resistance from employers to allow the employees to complete the training
- Lack of confidence by the trainers and trainees on the process
- Lack of motivation during the training
- Leadership lack of prioritization
- Communication issues
- Loss of key personnel in training
- Natural disasters
These issues can lead to a complete halt of the training program. Hence there is a need to address them immediately; they are raised so that they are solved early. However, disasters will have to halt the program since they are beyond human control.
Conclusion
Active shooter events occur in an unprecedented way. They can be due to criminal intents, work-related violence, domestic, ideologies, or psychological trauma. Many people are caught unaware, and due to lack of any pieces of training in how to manage the situation, they find themselves in danger of injuries and killings. With an appropriate action plan in place for implementation, people have a chance to be safe during the event. Different stakeholders are needed to be engaged in the training of these individuals hence the need to contact them. Since not all people can be trained, this implementation plan focuses on employees who work in confined places such as the mall, hospitals, and schools. The purpose is to teach them so that, if such an incident of mass shooting happens where they are, they will be the first to respond in assisting other victims. This implementation plan, if implemented, will make these places safer for the people. It is, therefore, necessary to collaborate with the stakeholders and implement it in the most vulnerable areas first. After the first training is complete, we will focus on finding a ground where we can set a training facility for other members of the public who wish to train can join at free will.